Friendly Game of Hide-and-Seek Ends in Tragic Death of 10-Year-Old

A 10 year-old girl died from suffocation after accidentally locking herself in a trunk during a game of hide and seek.

A girl of 10 died after becoming trapped in a trunk during a late-night children’s game of hide-and-seek.

The youngster, who was found the following morning, is believed to have suffocated while the adults of the household were asleep.

She is thought to have had a history of hiding in unusual places during games.

The death occurred on Monday night in Phoenix, Arizona, where the girl, who has not been named, lived with her grandmother, aunt and uncle and several siblings.

It has been reported that the girl was playing hide-and-seek at night with her cousins, who were visiting the home.

After the adults went to bed, the children’s game continued in and around the house, late into the night.

The girl could not be found during the game, but a search was conducted yesterday morning and she was found in a footlocker-style container around 8am.

Although her guardians administered CPR, they could not revive her. They called the local fire service, who pronounced the girl dead at the scene.

She is thought to have died of suffocation or positional asphyxiation, but a police spokesman said they were ‘waiting for the medical examiner to do an autopsy,’ the results of which will be available later in the week.

He emphasised that the police ‘found no indications of foul play,’ and were treating the death as a ‘tragic accident’.

After police obtained a search warrant for the home, according to the spokesman, ‘the inside of the house was found to be in considerable disarray,’ and they therefore asked local child protection services to monitor the household.

It is believed the children frequently played hide-and-seek, and this girl took the game very seriously.

‘She has hidden before and took pride in not being found,’ said the police spokesman. ‘She once hid beneath a barbecue unit, once hid in a dryer.’

This incident is similar to the case of Sonny Gibson, a four-year-old boy from Derbyshire who died last year after hiding in a tumble dryer.

As in this case, Sonny was left unsupervised overnight as his mother was away from home.